§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. George Wallace.]
§ 4.2 p.m.
§ Earl Winterton (Horsham)I rise to ask one or two questions of the Parliamentary Secretary, of which I have given him private notice. Perhaps I ought to say as this House is a place of tradition and custom that, as far as I know, there is no objection to asking questions on this half hour's Adjournment. The reason I want to put these matters in question form is that, for one thing, it is quite impossible, despite the nonsense talked on the subject by many people, for a speech of 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour to be of any real value. Fantastic statements have been made that all speeches would be better if they lasted only 10 minutes and that, generally speaking, they would be more coherent than speeches generally are today. The second reason is because my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gains-borough (Captain Crookshank) so adequately deals with agricultural matters on this side of the House on behalf of this bench.
Before I put my questions, of which I have already notified the Parliamentary Secretary, I should like to make two statements which, so to speak, govern them. I think that everyone agrees that the increased agricultural production which we wish to see can be effected only by the availability—or is limited by the availability—of machinery, fertilisers and feedingstuffs. I am not raising the last two points on this occasion, although possibly, the Parliamentary Secretary may desire to say a word about them.
My only other general proposition is that anyone who knows the agricultural industry will agree that there is still room for increased production from land now under cultivation or pasture. Despite the great improvements which have been made there is still a gap between what is produced by the best farmers and those less good. This is not a party matter and I think I clearly have the support of hon. Members opposite. In addition, as I have often ventured to point out in this House, there is still land which can be and is being reclaimed. Some of it has been in military occupation and has now been 1795 handed over to the agricultural executive committees and is being put back into cultivable condition. Some of it, however, particularly in the South of England, went out of cultivation 100 or 150 years ago and is being brought back into cultivation by both private enterprise and through the agricultural executive committees. There is also the question of commons, on which I might say, by way of parenthesis, that a good example of what can be done in the way of cultivating commons can be seen from what the Surrey W.A.E.C. have done on Ashtead Common.
Now to my questions, which I hope to put very shortly. The first concerns the matter of the Government's obligations towards the Food and Agriculture Organisation. As hon. Members will be aware, that organisation comprises something like 60 nations, and, according to a statement which was made in another place by the Government representative—not a Member of the Government, but the Government representative on that Organisation—and from which I do not propose to quote textually. Each member of that organisation has undertaken to send in by July of this year their plans for increasing food production, and, in addition, they have been asked to state what supplies in the way of tractors, fertilisers and farm machinery they have as their objectives. The Minister of Agriculture, in a letter which he wrote to me which was not marked "Private," so that I can quote from it, differed in his estimate of what would be the Government's obligation to that in the statement to which I have just referred. The right hon. Gentleman, in his letter, says:
The outline for the report suggested by F.A.O. for 1948 does not include any request for detailed information on this matter of supplies and requirements of agricultural machinery, or, for that matter, fertilisers and other means of production. We shall not, therefore, be including such details in our report.The right hon. Gentleman says in another passage of his letter that the obligations of the member nations are merely to give an account of their agricultural expansion programmes in their efforts to develop food production at home and abroad. I think it would be better to use the interpretation of our obligations which was given elsewhere, and I see no reason why, in addition to these details 1796 for the information of this Organisation, we should not say what our increased food production is to be, and why we should not state what our supplies and requirements are of agricultural machinery and the like, for the reason that that governs the whole situation. When will that information be produced? There was some difference of opinion as to the form in which it would be rendered, and I should also like an answer on that point. I hope it will be produced soon, and I strongly urge the right hon. Gentleman—and this is not a party question—that it should be in the full form which I have suggested.A statement was made in connection with agricultural machinery, on which I want further information, by Lord Addison, speaking on behalf of the Government. The noble Lord said:
The limiting cause of increased food production in this country is the inadequacy of the supply of machinery, which, in its turn, is limited by the supplies of steel.I should like to ask how far does that go, what is the amount and what is the priority. This is the really important thing—what is the priority? What priority have the manufacturers of agricultural machinery received in the matter of steel?My third question is this, and again it is not a party question. I think here that hon. Gentlemen in more than one quarter of the House are slightly in doubt as to the position in regard to the export of certain forms of agricultural machinery, and I am not talking about exports to other parts of the Empire. I understand that most of the machinery that has been sent to East Africa for the groundnuts scheme is old machinery. It has been asserted, and not denied, that we are exporting tractors to the United States. I think they are Ferguson tractors, although I am not an expert in this matter. If it is alleged that the only excuse for their export is that they are being sent to the United States in order to earn dollars, it seems fantastic on the face of it—there may be an answer, of course—to send anything to the United States to earn dollars which could be used in this country to produce the very food for which the dollar earning is required. That matter has not been cleared up, and if there is no other merit in my having raised this matter this afternoon, it is to 1797 get a clarification of the position in that respect. I want the Government to realise—this is probably an unnecessary observation, because they may already have realised it—that there is a feeling in the agricultural community that their efforts are hampered by the lack of the things which I have mentioned.
As I have said, I do not intend to make a speech, but only to ask questions. I think they are matters which are worth raising. I even thought it worth while to leave a comfortable seat watching the Test Match in order to come and raise this matter in the House of Commons on a Friday afternoon, thereby showing a most astonishing attitude. For a Briton actually to leave the Test Match and to come and address the House of Commons on a Friday afternoon with practically nobody present, would seem to the ordinary Englishman almost unbelievable. For the British, bless their hearts, regard games and sport with an intensity of feeling and interest which increases rather than diminishes with the years, and they approach problems of the greatest character—and, after all, this question of food production is a problem of the greatest character—with a sang froid which earns for them the admiration and the alarm of their friends abroad. At any rate, I hope that the interest which is shown in this subject in the House of Commons this afternoon is not symptomatic of its importance in the country.
§ 4.12 p.m.
§ Mr. Edelman (Coventry, West)I am glad the noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) has been generous enough to come here this afternoon to refer to the very important question of tractors. As he mentioned the Ferguson tractor, which is made in my constituency, I should like, without encroaching unduly on the time of the Parliamentary Secretary, to ask one or two questions about the disposal of those tractors now being manufactured. The noble Lord spoke about the degree of priority which had been given to the tractor industry. I think it is noteworthy that whereas between 1937 and 1944 the number of tractor units which were manufactured never reached much more than 18,849, in the first quarter of 1948 the number of tractor units produced is something like 25,000. That is the measure of 1798 the considerable encouragement given to the industry by the Government.
The important point is: what percentage of those tractors is being exported, and how much of that percentage is being exported to soft currency countries? I can imagine that some case might be made for exporting Ferguson tractors to the United States; but it does seem to me that one should look very carefully at the number of tractors which are being exported to soft currency countries from which we get very little or no return.
Finally, I would like to ask what agreement, if any, we have with France about the joint planning of our agricultural machinery production. I know that the Anglo-French Economic Committee has been considering for some time the question of integrating our production of agricultural machinery with that of France, and I should like to ask the Financial Secretary whether, in fact, any conclusions have been come to. It seems that if we are talking of Western Union and joint economic planning we must equally think of harmonising our production of agricultural machinery, without which there can be no valid Western Economic Union.
§ 4.15 p.m.
§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. George Brown)I hope the hon. Member for West Coventry (Mr. Edelman) will forgive me if I do not deal specifically with the requests he made for information. I have some figures which bear on the first point he made, as the noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) was kind enough to tell me roughly the sort of thing he was going to raise, but I have not the actual figures on tractors. I will get them and see that the hon. Member has them.
The noble Lord referred at the beginning to fertilisers, and I will say very little about that now since he went on to a very important point about which there has been some confusion. A good deal has been said about the shortage of fertilisers but it should be remembered that in fact we are using—not only producing but using—far more fertilisers of one kind and another than have ever been used before, and that fertilisers have never been so plentiful as they are this 1799 year. Taking nitrogen, for example, in terms of plant food, from July, 1946, to May, 1947, we had available 166,800 tons. In the same period of 1947–48 we have had 190,490. The figures for phosphate was 331,259 and the new figure is 370,740. Potash figures were 120,441 and are now 185,939.
Although there is a great demand throughout, I think the shortage arises from a variety of things—the early season, the success of our advisory programme and the lifting of controls; the fact that it was possible for people to go ahead and use fertilisers on the variety of crops meant, perhaps, that the potato men were short at the particular time they needed it, but that problem did not arise really from an overall shortage of fertilisers.
Turning to what the noble Lord called the great love of his life, the reclamation of land, I was pleased to hear him pay tribute to the Surrey Committee. I was there a few weeks ago and I went round with the chairman of the Committee, who also loves this kind of work, and I was greatly impressed. We always have to bear in mind, however, whether we get more production by using men and machinery on this work or by using it to help the ordinary farmers on their land. That is the limiting factor.
An important point raised by the noble Lord was the question of F.A.O. and I want to come to that, but before I do so may I say a word on this question about machinery. In talking of a shortage of machinery one has to bear in mind—and this has a bearing on one or two other things he said—that not all machinery is in short supply. Although there may be an overall shortage, within our overall target we may have some things coming into much greater supply, and that is very true of the wheeled tractors as against other tractors, heavier ploughs and so on. The ex-works output of agricultural machinery and spares in 1946 was £26 million, of which £20 million went to the home market. In 1947 the total output was £44 million, of which £35 million went to the home market. From 1948 onwards the target set in the White Paper is £40 million to the home market—that is, internal consumption of agricultural machinery. In fact, for the first three months of this year—this is as far as I can 1800 go; I regret to say I cannot take the figures further this afternoon—we produced £16 million of machinery of which rather more than £10½ million went for use on the home market. In other words, our present rate of intake of agricultural machinery on the home market is £2 million above the full £40 million target set at the same time as the agricultural expansion programme was set, so we are over the target on that particular point, and there is no reason to suggest that we are exporting at the expense of our home farmer.
The question as to whether it is fan tastic—as the noble Lord said—to export tractors to America to earn dollars is a point on which I would differ from him. For a variety of reasons I think it is important to do so. For one thing, wheeled tractors are one of the things of which we are not so short as we are of other things. The easing is very noticeable in wheeled tractors and second-hand prices give an indication of that. The second point is that we do need to earn some dollars at the moment. The third point is that manufacturers will tell us that it is very important, if there is a market to be obtained on a long-term basis in the Western hemisphere, that we ought to go in and get it. We have pushed up our export of tractors and agricultural machinery to the Western hemisphere—that is to Canada and the United States—from £71,000 in 1947 to over £1½ million in the first four months of this year.
It is astonishing, incredible, very worthy of tribute, and I think that the manufacturers of these machines ought to be praised rather than denigrated, since it has no harmful effects on consumption on the home market, for these are wheeled tractors, the Fergusons to which the hon. Member referred. We do export a considerable amount of agricultural machinery of one kind or another. It, nearly all of it, in one sense or another, goes in requited exports. It goes to the United States and Canada, and so is directly dollar earning. Of the £1,600,000 worth which goes to the rest of the sterling area, the most part is goods we use for bargaining to enable us to bring back food and other things we need and which we obtain under the various bilateral negotiations. About £300,000 worth goes to our own overseas territories and will be very 1801 valuable in bringing about an increase in food supplies, which question is an important part of the F.A.O. Charter to which we have subscribed. ½2,600,000 worth goes to other European countries in the recovery programme, and is obviously a very large part of our obligations in that respect. We can justify these exports we are making on the ground that they are requited in one way or another.
That brings me to the question of F.A.O. about which there was some misunderstanding in another place. Let me get this clear straight away. The noble Lord referred to Lord Bruce. He referred to him as a Government representative. He is in no sense a Government representative. The noble Lord talked about a statement made by the Government representative. Lord Bruce is, to use his own words, the independent chairman of the Executive Council of the F.A.O. He was invited to be so because of his eminence in world affairs. We have no more responsibility than anybody else for what he says there and for what he says when he comes back here.
On the question of the report we have to submit, there was a term used in another place, "new plans." That, unfortunately, was the beginning of some misunderstanding. These are not new plans in our agriculture. Article II of the Constitution lays on all countries, including our own, the obligation
to communicate periodically to the Organisation reports of the progress made towards achieving the purpose of the Organisation and on the action taken on the basis of recommendations made and conventions submitted.Last August a Commission was appointed to study this part of the Constitution of the F.A.O., and to consider the whole question and any change necessary, because the reports had been sketchy, and had not come from all the members of the Organisation. Some of the reports, indeed, were limited to one page, and even those came from only half the countries concerned. The Commission decided to recommend—and the Organisation has now agreed to that recommendation—that as from this year there shall be two forms of report to be asked for.One report is to be a minimum report. It is obligatory on all member nations to make the minimum report. The other 1802 kind of report is to be a comprehensive report. That is to be made optionally. The minimum obligatory report is not a statistical report. It has to be what is called a "qualitative discussion." When I asked what a "qualitative discussion" was, I was told, "A waffle without any details in it." The qualitative discussion of the food and agricultural situation of the countries concerned will be about the productive programmes under consideration. The comprehensive report will include a good deal of statistical information, concerning production, consumption, export and import targets, food requirements, and so on. The minimum report is to be based on a questionnaire sent out by the Organisation for the sake of uniformity.
It has been suggested—and this is where misunderstanding has arisen—that these reports will give help in tabulating the world balance sheet showing what is required and what is available. That cannot be so, because the necessary information comes only in the optional reports and not every country will submit optional reports. We can think of great countries that are members of the Organisation that would not even have the information to supply. We could not get it unless we had all the optional reports, and, secondly, not everyone is a member of the organisation. Although we cannot get a balance sheet of that kind, we have agreed that we will supply the minimum report, which is a statement of our agricultural plans and programme—how far we have got, etc.—and also supply the optional report. How many other people besides ourselves will supply that information one cannot say. The report is nearly complete now, and will be tabled by July, which is the exact dead line date.
On the question of whether we are under obligation to give details of machinery and so on, the answer is that we are not. In fact, in our statistical report, we shall give a good deal of information, and in order to have it on record I will quote the covering letter from the Deputy Director-General, in which he says:
Care has been taken in preparing the outline for the 1948 report to avoid asking for information on matters which have been the subject of inquiry on some previous occasion, or are currently engaging attention elsewhere. For instance, no quantitative information is required on nitrogenous fertilisers in view of 1803 the recent issue of an I.E F.C. questionnaire on the subject, or on farm machinery which is to be the subject of a special inquiry to the individual Governments concerned.There is no obligation on us. We shall supply statistical information in order to give as much help as we can to this organisation, but we are not sure that every Government will be doing the same. When it was stated in another place that every Government member had undertaken to send in their plans for food production and had been requested to include precisely what supplies were needed, there obviously was a misunderstanding. I think that I have covered the situation in this report, and I hope that I have succeeded in clearing up any misunderstanding and doubt which there may have been. We claim that we have given in the F.A.O. the clearest lead any Government could be required to give, both by way of Ministerial representation and participation by our delegate to the World Food Council, and by way of providing all the information that we can provide. We have given a real lead, and I think that it ought to be recognised with some pride in this House that we have done so.
§ Earl WintertonMay I ask the hon. Gentleman to agree that this organisation, if it is properly worked, may make all the difference between world starvation and world plenty?
§ Mr. BrownThe reason that we have taken such a great part in the work of this organisation is that a very serious situation does face the world, and that this organisation, if it can be made to work, may play a decisive part in settling it. But we must not over-simplify the 1804 problem. This organisation is not an executive body, and it will be for all member-States to try to fit in and help. I would deprecate any over-simplification as there has been by some very eminent men of the work of the Organisation. It is a very valuable organisation and can do a considerable amount of work. By our expansion programme here and our overseas food expansion programme we are playing our part, and by our grassland improvement, animal health improvement, etc., we are doing what we have been asked to do, and there is nothing in the Government's record which gives us the slightest qualms of conscience.
§ Mr. Edgar Granville (Eye)Can the hon. Gentleman make available to the House, at some time, the figures relating to imports of agricultural machinery?
§ Mr. BrownI have some figures about imports, and what we are doing in this country to produce a good deal of machinery which we have had hitherto to import. A considerable amount has been done with regard to heavy tractors, crawler tractors, combine harvesters, grass dryers, and a whole range of things which hitherto we have had to import. We shall have available this year 2,000 additional combine harvesters in this country, which will be twice as many as last year. We have new models of crawler tractors coming into production, and one will be in production immediately. If there are any other details which the hon. Member would like, perhaps he would put down a question?
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-nine minutes to Five o'Clock.